“It’s only natural, my dear,” he said, “that you should be uneasy; and it isn’t for me to say ‘do this,’ or ‘don’t do it.’ Hush, mother, please; it’s a trying time for Honor, and--” But before he could descant further--either on the nature of, or the palliations for, his young wife’s trials--a loud tap was heard at the door, a tap which was immediately followed up by the intrusion of a waiter’s head, the said waiter being the bearer, as speedily became apparent, of a note. “From Mrs. Baker, sir,” the man said, presenting it to Mr. Beacham on a japanned waiter, “and the favour of an answer is requested.” It was a small unportentous-looking missive, directed in an uncertain feminine hand. Yet John opened it with strong forebodings of evil, forebodings which were to a certain extent justified, since the writer--one of the gentlest and most charitable, by the way, of Christian matrons--imparted to him, in a few agitated lines, the fact that her son, believing himself to be lying on his bed of death, had disclosed to her one of the heaviest of his past offences against his God, and had declared himself to be the penitent father of John Beacham’s wife. “The most earnest wish of my poor guilty son,” wrote the unhappy mother, “appears to be that he may see again the child whom he has so long neglected and forsaken. May God forgive me if I am doing wrong in urging you to grant this prayer. At the eleventh hour there was forgiveness for even one of the worst of sinners. May I not hope that, as a sign and hope of that forgiveness, _you_ may be led to grant the prayer not only of my son, but of one whom the judgments of God have followed all the days of her life.” John laid down the letter with something very like despair tugging at his heartstrings. The worst that he had, as regarded Honor, ventured to anticipate, had come to pass. To refuse the entreaty of the aged lady, so soon perhaps, by his act and deed, to be bereaved of her only son, was simply impossible, but that prayer granted, and Honor permitted to take her place by her father’s dying pillow, all hope of concealing the terrible secret--which John would have willingly given all that he possessed to hide--was at an end. With a heavy heart he made the contents of the missive known to his womankind. “You see, Honey,” he said, as his wife’s eyes glanced, almost without taking in their sense, over the hurriedly-written lines, “you see, Honey, we might have saved ourselves all this bother. Here’s Mrs. Baker, poor soul, knows all about it, and wants to see you, child. It isn’t what I should have wished; but what is to be must be; and so I suppose I must just send word that you’ll wait on Mrs. Baker in the room she has to sit in. Ah me, it’s a great change! And who’d a thought, when we left home only so late as yesterday, that such things would come about!”